0:00:00 > 0:00:00The document suggests the UK won't be able to sign trade
0:00:00 > 0:00:02deals without permission.
0:00:02 > 0:00:17Now on BBC News - all the latest business news live from Singapore.
0:00:17 > 0:00:20Federal reserve, minutes out of. Will
0:00:21 > 0:00:21Federal reserve, minutes out of. Will the
0:00:21 > 0:00:22Federal reserve, minutes out of. Will the central bank take
0:00:22 > 0:00:24Federal reserve, minutes out of. Will the central bank take a more
0:00:24 > 0:00:28hawkish approach on interest rates? And a global tech consultancy shows
0:00:28 > 0:00:36businesses how to play their cards right in the year of the dog.
0:00:40 > 0:00:45Good morning Asia, hello world. Glad you could join us for this exciting
0:00:45 > 0:00:49edition of Asia Business Report, I am Rico Hizon. We start off with the
0:00:49 > 0:00:53US and Federal reserve has released minutes, giving an upbeat assessment
0:00:53 > 0:00:57of the economy and inflation, changing expectation about interest
0:00:57 > 0:01:00rates have created more volatility in the markets, just like what
0:01:00 > 0:01:05happened on Wall Street yesterday, opening on the plus side but closing
0:01:05 > 0:01:12in negative with the Dow Jones down by 167 point. As for Asian markets,
0:01:12 > 0:01:21currently open and it is a mixed bag. The NIkkei up and the All
0:01:21 > 0:01:26Ordinaries down the. Earlier I put the question to our reporter Joe
0:01:26 > 0:01:30Miller in New York.If you ask the markets when they had closed at 4pm
0:01:30 > 0:01:35the answer would yes but if you ask the markets just a a few minutes
0:01:35 > 0:01:39after the minutes can out it was anyone's guess and you will know
0:01:39 > 0:01:44that usually when these minutes come out, a few minutes later my inbox
0:01:44 > 0:01:49and your inbox I am sure is filled with comments of analyst and pundits
0:01:49 > 0:01:53explain what they mean. There was stony silence as people try to
0:01:53 > 0:01:59interpret exactly what the wording in the minutes meant and this is the
0:01:59 > 0:02:02all sorts of confusion, eventually the markets settle on the fact that
0:02:02 > 0:02:07the words increased likelihood of further rises meant we would see a
0:02:07 > 0:02:13more hawkish Fed and therefore stocks fell and US bond yields went
0:02:13 > 0:02:19up to four-year highs. Overall I think this is not the sort of market
0:02:19 > 0:02:24move that is too alarming. It is not the sort of thing that would have
0:02:24 > 0:02:26happened if there had been even stronger language suggesting that
0:02:26 > 0:02:31perhaps instead of three rate rises expect in the next year there might
0:02:31 > 0:02:38be four. People are still on the fence about that.With pundits
0:02:38 > 0:02:41decoding the Federal minutes, what are they generally seen? When will
0:02:41 > 0:02:48be the first rate hike from the said this year?Everyone now, it seems,
0:02:48 > 0:02:55is expecting a much rate rise of 0.25%. The question is really beyond
0:02:55 > 0:03:00that. The question is what happens in the rest of the year? We seek to
0:03:00 > 0:03:04make more rate rises or three, how confident is the Federal reserve
0:03:04 > 0:03:09that inflation isn't going to rise well above its 2% target? The
0:03:09 > 0:03:16wording in the report really was a sort of meddling about this. The Fed
0:03:16 > 0:03:23noted that the minutes noted that inflation was edging towards that 2%
0:03:23 > 0:03:28target, but there was no alarm about that and had there been a little bit
0:03:28 > 0:03:32more alarm that have seen a huge market reaction but because they
0:03:32 > 0:03:36were fairly calm about the prospect of interest rates moving towards 2%,
0:03:36 > 0:03:43the markets were not too alarmed. Overall I think these minutes had
0:03:43 > 0:03:52less of an impact that many thought they might.Amazon have reached a
0:03:52 > 0:03:59new high, stocks rising above the $1500 mark, a huge contrast to
0:03:59 > 0:04:04Walmart, which dropped overnight, a day after they experienced their
0:04:04 > 0:04:11worst day on Wall Street for more than 30 years. I am joined by my
0:04:11 > 0:04:17colleague, eight ten Walmart compete with Amazon?They are claiming a
0:04:17 > 0:04:22stiff learning curve and are going as fast as they can but you look at
0:04:22 > 0:04:25the earnings report, it is not moving fast enough. On Tuesday they
0:04:25 > 0:04:28came out and they missed their projection, the first time into a
0:04:28 > 0:04:33half years and that new scent their stock in a freefall. It went down
0:04:33 > 0:04:3910%. So what the chief executive of Walmart is saying that they ran into
0:04:39 > 0:04:42operational challenges and that is because their online sales were
0:04:42 > 0:04:47soft. The big test is over the Christmas holiday, had trouble in
0:04:47 > 0:04:50their distribution centre getting electronics and toys out in time and
0:04:50 > 0:04:55this is what Amazon has done incredibly well. A streamlined the
0:04:55 > 0:04:58distribution process and some is the most efficient system in the world.
0:04:58 > 0:05:02They have a long way to go, they said they want to get their online
0:05:02 > 0:05:08sales up 30% by the end of the year. If you take a look at Amazon stock
0:05:08 > 0:05:14price, its market cap is more than 700 Win US dollars, that 1 trillion
0:05:14 > 0:05:19mark ever so near. Thank you for that update. My colleague Monica
0:05:19 > 0:05:34Miller. -- $700 billion. WhatsApp is used by millions of Indians, they
0:05:34 > 0:05:40target payments and eating sports scores without a data connection.
0:05:40 > 0:05:45But it is an ambitious plan for a firm that is burning more cash than
0:05:45 > 0:05:52it may. -- makes. Sally bunged up sat down with its executive.Hike is
0:05:52 > 0:06:00different in the sense that we don't have logistics, we have a team in
0:06:00 > 0:06:04Bangalore and most of our costs are absorbed. Some marketing costs and
0:06:04 > 0:06:09our people. That is not a concern with respect to Hike.Others say it
0:06:09 > 0:06:14is a concern.Very unlikely. There is a concern in the market to shore.
0:06:14 > 0:06:20I think at the end of the day, Internet businesses at such an early
0:06:20 > 0:06:26stage of the economy, we are all looking at other e-commerce
0:06:26 > 0:06:29businesses and businesses in India, they are in investment phase.Will
0:06:29 > 0:06:33you have to raise more money soon?I think it is very likely that one
0:06:33 > 0:06:39would go for two more rounds of funding, we are very early in our
0:06:39 > 0:06:45journey and have raised $260 million but it is so early on in its journey
0:06:45 > 0:06:49that we still believe a lot of work has to be done to bring us into the
0:06:49 > 0:06:54online.Have you had any approaches or people interested in buying your
0:06:54 > 0:07:00company?I can't comment on that. OK. Having said that, Facebook, we
0:07:00 > 0:07:05know they have had difficulties penetrating the Indian market, so
0:07:05 > 0:07:11people will see you as an attractive option?To shore. No doubt. I think
0:07:11 > 0:07:16that is the case for a wall local companies doing well. -- all locals
0:07:16 > 0:07:21to be when I founded the company idea was 1 billion people will come
0:07:21 > 0:07:25online for the first time in their lives. A billion people. China, it
0:07:25 > 0:07:31hasn't happened, it Japan, it hasn't happened in the US. Ins will be
0:07:31 > 0:07:34different and we believe messaging could simplify the way people come
0:07:34 > 0:07:39online which is why Hike itself is more than messaging, it has content,
0:07:39 > 0:07:46scores, live music. It is different from the market, which is why we
0:07:46 > 0:07:49have Chinese investing in the company and I think that is where we
0:07:49 > 0:07:56are today.Speaking there to the BBC's Sally bundled. Technologies
0:07:56 > 0:08:02ever-changing, making it hard for businesses to keep up, which trends
0:08:02 > 0:08:06ranging from a chain to the Internet of things should they focus on? Lisa
0:08:06 > 0:08:12caught up with tech consultancy company damage and data, which
0:08:12 > 0:08:24weighed out predictions from a deck of cards. -- To mention Data. It has
0:08:24 > 0:08:29to look at cyber security and help the chain will disrupt it.Cyber
0:08:29 > 0:08:33currencies like bitcoin are interesting but the underlying
0:08:33 > 0:08:40technology which is an irrefutable system has a lot of uses.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43Altercations and certifications, land Registry titles, people need to
0:08:43 > 0:08:47get those instantly. These can be online, public and they are
0:08:47 > 0:08:52guaranteed to be accurate. There is a number of uses of the underlying
0:08:52 > 0:08:56gene technology which we are yet to take advantage of.Is move on to the
0:08:56 > 0:09:00next card and what it holds. It has to do with customer experience and
0:09:00 > 0:09:05how that is going to be powered by the Internet.The use of new digital
0:09:05 > 0:09:09technologies now to improve the way you work it out there. There are
0:09:09 > 0:09:16nine typical channels, I am, voice, e-mail, social media, that you can
0:09:16 > 0:09:21interact. From the voice varies voice recognition technologies, they
0:09:21 > 0:09:26can actually look at your intent, they can throw up box or guide you.
0:09:26 > 0:09:29If you are frustrated with eight website at playing for a new credit
0:09:29 > 0:09:34card. And also potential analysis, they can predict what it is based on
0:09:34 > 0:09:37your speech pattern that you're trying to look for. Completely
0:09:37 > 0:09:41changing the way you interact with your bank or your telco.And
0:09:41 > 0:09:49finally. Digital business and how that is going to be disrupted by AI,
0:09:49 > 0:09:53machine learning robotics and virtual augmented reality.I think
0:09:53 > 0:09:59we are still very at the early stages I think the platforms are out
0:09:59 > 0:10:03there, freely available for a lot of used. We need to encourage and
0:10:03 > 0:10:07educate our employees to use these tools and make sure you have a
0:10:07 > 0:10:11record of all the data in the organisation seek a start to get
0:10:11 > 0:10:15inside and make smart decisions. Thanks Andy for your insight and
0:10:15 > 0:10:20predictions, will have to check back in in 2019. A deck of cards
0:10:20 > 0:10:24predicting the future of IT. That is it for this edition of Asia Business
0:10:24 > 0:10:31Report. All of those on Twitter. Thank you so much for investing your
0:10:31 > 0:10:32time, bye